The Bombing of Forncett

You may be as surprised as I was to learn that the rural village of Forncett was bombed by the Germans in both World Wars! Nevertheless, "The Bombing of Forncett" was the subject of Philip Yull's interesting and well-attended talk to the History Group at our October meeting.

At the outbreak of WW1, in August 1914, the German military already had a fleet of Zeppelin airships with the potential to reach Britain but we had essentially no defence against these giants of the sky which were twice the size of a jumbo jet. The idea of the airship was conceived by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in 1867, but it was 1900 before the first Zeppelin flew. Although the German military were slow to adopt the airship, the world's first airline was established in 1910 using them, and by the start of WW1 over 1000 flights had been made without mishap and more than 10,000 passengers carried.

The first Zeppelin raid on Britain took place on the 19th January 1915 and, although not the intended targets, the Norfolk towns of Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn were hit. These bombing raids were remarkably haphazard affairs. The airships were slow (cruising at around 35mph), navigation was very difficult and strong winds could easily blow them off course. Raids took place only at night and so selection of targets was imprecise. No military targets were hit in that first raid, but four civilians lost their lives. The raid on Kings Lynn was later documented on a postcard.

Sporadic raids continued, and on 2ndAugust 1916 four Zeppelins (L13, L16, L17 and L21) attacked Norfolk. L13 and L16 bombed a wide area in south Norfolk and the villages of Tacolneston, Fundenhall and Long Stratton were all hit but without any casualties. Zeppelin L17 dropped a total of twenty bombs on a number of targets before it arrived over Forncett. It's not clear what the Zeppelin commander was looking for: perhaps he saw a glow from a locomotive fire box but something prompted him to drop a single incendiary bomb which narrowly missed a railway signal! This is the only known record of a bomb being dropped on Forncett during WWI. The first Zeppelin was shot down over Britain on the 2nd September 1916 and thereafter Zeppelin raids rapidly decreased. Airships had made 51 bombing raids on Britain during the war. A total of 5,806 bombs were dropped: 557 people were killed and 1,358 injured.

While the Zeppelin raids on Norfolk during WWI were meticulously recorded that wasn't true for bombing raids on Britain at the outset of WW2. So, it was by complete chance that Philip found a record of Forncett being bombed in 1940. During our History Group visit in 2023 to the site of an RAF Radar station that still exists in Stoke Holy Cross, Philip noticed a small book in which were recorded "Enemy Action and Incidentsan RAF Radar station that still exists in Stoke Holy Cross reported to Constabulary Headquarters". There on page 1 was a record of three incendiary bombs being dropped on Forncett on 18th August 1940!

However, despite his very best efforts, Philip has been unable to uncover any more information about this event. So, although it seems that Forncett was bombed at least once during WW2, why and where our village was attacked remains a mystery.

Philip's talk was copiously illustrated and described a largely unknown aspect of WWI. A much more detailed summary of the talk will appear on the Forncett History website in due course.